Mrs. Roz Finally Tells the Truth
Chapter 07 - Mrs. Roz Finally Tells the Truth
Conrad Vale had been stabbed in the parking garage beneath his Boston apartment.
He survived.
The police called it an attempted robbery, though nothing had been taken. His wallet remained in his pocket. His watch, worth more than Josephine earned in a year, was still on his wrist.
Raphael did not believe in convenient robberies.
Neither did Gideon.
They returned to Boston that afternoon.
Wyatt had been moved from intensive care to a regular cardiac room. He greeted Josephine by announcing that a nurse had let him order pudding twice.
“You’re abusing the system.”
“I almost died.”
“You are going to use that for the next ten years, aren’t you?”
“At least.”
Raphael stood near the door, watching them.
Wyatt looked at him.
“Are you my uncle?”
The question erased every other sound in the room.
Josephine sat down slowly.
“Wyatt.”
“I heard Aunt Ellie talking.”
Eleanor, across the room, closed her eyes.
Wyatt continued.
“She thought I was asleep.”
Josephine looked at Raphael.
Raphael looked at the boy.
There are questions adults can delay because they have learned how to live inside uncertainty. Children are less polite with fear.
“We don’t know yet,” Raphael said.
Wyatt considered that.
“Would it be bad?”
Raphael’s throat tightened.
“No.”
“Would it be weird?”
“Yes.”
Wyatt smiled.
“Okay.”
Josephine laughed softly.
That was the entire conversation.
For now.
When Wyatt was discharged six days later, Raphael insisted they come to the estate.
Josephine refused three times.
On the fourth, Mrs. Roz arrived at the hospital herself.
She took one look at Josephine and said, “You can argue with Mr. Orsini or you can argue with me.”
Josephine folded Wyatt’s sweatshirt.
“That is emotional blackmail.”
“Yes.”
“You admit it?”
“I’m seventy-two. I don’t have time to make it subtle.”
Wyatt chose the mansion.
Mostly because he had never seen one.
He spent the first hour counting fireplaces.
Josephine did not put her uniform back on.
Raphael had told her she was on paid leave for as long as Wyatt needed care.
She had objected.
Mrs. Roz had threatened to hide every apron in the house.
Josephine surrendered.
That evening, while Wyatt slept in a guest room near Josephine’s temporary room, Mrs. Roz asked her to come to the kitchen.
Not the formal kitchen used for catered dinners.
The old one in the back, where staff drank tea after midnight and complained about people who owned too many forks.
Mrs. Roz placed two cups on the table.
“I owe you the truth.”
Josephine sat very still.
“That sentence is becoming popular.”
Mrs. Roz winced.
“I knew your father.”
Josephine stared at her.
“Of course you did.”
“I knew him well.”
“How well?”
“He taught me to drive.”
Despite everything, Josephine blinked. “Dad?”
“He said I drove like a priest carrying soup.”
“That sounds like Dad.”
Mrs. Roz smiled, then lost it.
“I also knew Dileia was pregnant.”
Josephine stopped breathing for a second.
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
“And you said nothing.”
“Your father made me promise.”
“My father is dead.”
“He was alive when I promised.”
“Dileia was dead too. My mother died four years ago. How long were you planning to keep everybody’s promises?”
Mrs. Roz accepted the anger.
“Until the danger was gone.”
Josephine stood.
“Then why did you hire me?”
There it was.
The question Mrs. Roz had feared for two years.
She looked toward the dark window.
“Because I saw your name on the application.”
Josephine’s stomach dropped.
“You chose me because I was Samuel Hartley’s daughter.”
“Yes.”
“You let me believe I earned the job.”
“You did earn it.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No.”
Josephine’s eyes filled.
Mrs. Roz reached for her but stopped before touching.
“After Claire died, I worried about you and Wyatt. I did not know where you were. Then your application appeared for a housekeeping position.”
“So you brought me here to watch me.”
“To keep you close.”
“Without telling me.”
“Yes.”
Josephine laughed once, bitterly.
“Everybody in my life seems to love me by lying.”
Mrs. Roz’s face folded.
“That may be the truest thing anyone has said in this house.”
The kitchen door opened.
Raphael stood there.
He had heard enough.
Josephine wiped her eyes.
“Did you know she hired me because of my father?”
“No.”
“Did Gideon?”
Mrs. Roz answered. “No.”
Josephine nodded.
“One honest answer. Good.”
She started toward the door.
Mrs. Roz said, “Jo.”
Josephine stopped.
“There’s more.”
She almost laughed.
“Of course there is.”
Mrs. Roz opened the drawer beneath the old breadboard and removed a photograph.
Unlike Eleanor’s picture, this one had never been cut.
Dileia sat in a hospital bed holding a newborn.
Samuel Hartley stood at her left.
At her right was a man in a dark suit.
Conrad Vale.
His face was younger, but unmistakable.
One hand rested on Dileia’s shoulder.
The other was wrapped around the baby’s tiny foot.
On the back, Dileia had written:
Wyatt, three hours old. Sam says he has my eyes. Conrad says he has his temper.
Josephine felt the room tilt.
Raphael took the picture.
He read it twice.
Mrs. Roz whispered, “I found that in Dileia’s room after she died.”
Raphael’s jaw tightened.
“Why didn’t you give it to my father?”
“Because Dileia told me not to trust him.”
“Conrad?”
Mrs. Roz shook her head.
“Your father.”
Raphael stared at her.
“That makes no sense.”
“I know.”
She looked suddenly frightened.
“But the night Dileia died, your father came home with blood on his shirt.”
No one spoke.
Mrs. Roz’s voice dropped to a whisper.
May you like
“And the blood was not his.”
**For the first time, Raphael had to consider the possibility that the man he spent years defending might have been the man his sister feared most.**
